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Chapter 2 Resisting Unlearning: Understanding Science Education’s Response to the United States’s National Accountability MovementFlorida State University
Brigham Young University
Cleveland State University
The University of Georgia
The assessment head for the state Department of Education (DOE) travels across town to present a lecture to the university’s science education faculty. His talk is on the state’s science assessment and what the inclusion of this assessment in determination of AYP (adequate yearly progress) will mean for the state’s teachers. The room feels a bit uncomfortable because DOE staff and professors seldom speak, formally or informally. There is much handshaking and elaborate introductions as the faculty work to make the DOE representative comfortable and as he networks for possible resources. His PowerPoint begins with, "All of us here share an overriding goal . . ." The faculty nod, content that the DOE staff person is working to create a sense of community. He continues, " . . . and that goal is to increase the performance of students in our state . . ." A hand shoots up. The DOE staff person tries to continue but the shaking hand will not go down. "Yes?" he asks. The owner of the hand quickly responds, "I hate to disagree with you so quickly but increasing performance is NOT our goal. Our job is to help teachers develop the knowledge and skills needed to better help their students learn science. If performance on some measure goes up, well so much the better." He retorts, "But isn’t learning and increased performance the same thing?" The scenario described above highlights conflicts between the science education research community and the educational climate associated with No Child Left Behind (NCLB, 2001). Our goal in this chapter is to explain the apparent failure to communicate between science education researchers, policy makers, and staff at state and district offices of education. Each group is a stakeholder in K–12 education. Policy makers specify courses of action to meet the needs of an educational system, state and district staff work to implement these policies, and science education researchers examine educational systems with the hope of proposing changes to better support learning. Ideally, research would complement and inform policy. However, the failure-to-communicate scenario above exposes a fundamental incommensurability between current educational policy and science education research. The timing of our analysis is particularly fortuitous because science is the latest discipline to be included in AYP for NCLB. We invoke the idea of first-order/second-order change as described by Cuban (1988) to explain this failure to communicate. First-order change requires small alterations of or additions to existing practices (e.g., changes in texts, number of students in a classroom, length of day, equipment), basically any attempt to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of current schooling practices. In contrast, second-order change is meant to alter the fundamental patterns of schooling; these changes are much more radical and transformative because they challenge the structures and rules that constitute traditional schooling practices. Second-order changes "challenge the cultural traditions of schools" (Romberg & Price, 1983, p.159) and require fundamental changes in both teacher thinking and classroom practice. Thus, they are inherently more difficult to implement and sustain. We argue that the science education reform efforts that began in the mid-1980s represent an attempt to enact second-order change. In contrast, the policy community, via NCLB, simply calls for change without guidelines to support teaching and learning. To comply with NCLB requirements, school districts often take the most expedient and efficient routes rather than support the kinds of teaching and learning environments that support reform-oriented recommendations. For instance, in reaction to the upcoming NCLB inclusion of science, we have seen schools employ after-school and weekend tutoring sessions where students who are underperforming are drilled on content. Doing more of what is typically done is akin to a first-order response. In contrast, the science education research community might support a reformulation of instruction that entails pulling examples of content from students’ out-of-school lives or asking them to produce metacognitive maps/journals based on inquiries they have performed. An issue that is particularly frustrating is that the first-order changes associated with policy implementation require substantial time, money, and energy and these requirements shift resources away from the second-order changes desired by researchers. Increasing performance on standardized tests constitutes a measure of effectiveness for certain communities, and these communities may respond to NCLB by making the existing system more efficient in terms of improving student performance. Many science educators, on the other hand, look toward scientific literacy as a sign of effectiveness. The science education research community will not, and should not, reverse its focus on scientific literacy for all to more efficient performance on standardized tests. Scientific literacy entails construing effective science teaching as a practice that results in students’ construction of applicable, meaningful, and useful knowledge. We argue that scientific literacy is a framework that is more compelling than the diluted versions of science teaching and learning inspired by NCLB. Although science education researchers find themselves working within a climate of first-order changes, we argue that our community must resist unlearning what decades of empirical research have taught us about effective science teaching and learning. We argue that we cannot ignore the need for fundamental, second-order changes simply because we are faced with a push for more short-term, less substantive alterations in science teaching. Finally, we argue that it is not enough to work within the current climate of first-order changes; instead, science educators must take a more active role in helping states, districts, and producers of textbooks and assessments to make our call for fundamental, second-order change intelligible and compelling.
For decades, there have been a number of calls to reform science teaching and learning. Typically, these calls have been in response to a real or rhetorically expedient crisis invoked by policy makers (Klopfer & Champagne, 1990). In the mid-1980s, the crisis in question was reported in A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform (National Commission on Excellence in Education [NCEE], 1983). The authors of this report argued that educational mediocrity was endangering American "preeminence in commerce, industry, science and technological innovation" (p. 1). The political climate at that time "encouraged both careful examination of how students learn science and the assumptions about what science knowledge is most valued by society" (Collins, 1998, p. 712). Two groups, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) (working in conjunction with the National Research Council [NRC]), responded to the public plea for science education reform. These groups established visions for science learners; standards for content, teaching, and assessment; and descriptions of systemic changes needed to enact these standards. AAAS took the lead in defining scientific literacy as the preeminent goal of science education, as described in Science for All Americans: Project 2061 (AAAS, 1989). The NSTA/NRC group authored the National Science Education Standards (NRC, 1996), which describes standards for science teaching, professional development, assessment, content, programs, and systems. The efforts of these two groups coalesced on a number of points that characterize the most current reform efforts in science education:
These ideas have shaped the efforts of the science education research community during the past decade. For the purpose of this chapter, we focus on five strands of science education research: student science learning, inquiry, the nature of science, diversity, and teacher education. In the following sections, we briefly summarize the central ideas within each of these areas and then discuss how researchers working in each of these areas have responded or refused to respond to NCLB.
Much of the research in student science learning, which lies at the heart of science education reform, centers on recognizing the difficulties students have in learning science. Take, for example, students’ understandings of the relationship between the earth and the sun: While growing up, children are told by adults that the "sun is rising and setting," giving them an image of a sun that moves about the earth. In school, students are told by teachers (years after they have already formed their own mental model of how things work) that the earth rotates. Students are then faced with the difficult task of deleting a mental image that makes sense to them, based on their own observations, and replacing it with a model that is not as intuitively acceptable. This task is not trivial, for students must undo a whole mental framework of knowledge that they have used to understand the world. (NRC, 1997, chapter 4, p. 3) The difficulty students have in learning science does not result from their lack of understanding. Rather, students bring preconceived notions about natural phenomena to science classes. Their everyday ways of thinking are often at odds with the scientific explanation being promoted in the classroom. The difficulty involves changing or reshaping students’ conceptions (Duschl, Schweingruber, & Shouse, 2007). Students’ alternative ways of understanding the world—typically referred to as "misconceptions," "alternative conceptions," or "children’s science"—captured the attention of innumerable science educators for more than two decades. Two reviews of thousands of such studies summarize this research (Pfundt & Duit, 1994; Wandersee, Mintzes, & Novak, 1994). It is thought that if science educators understood the nature of students’ conceptions, then they would be in a better position to revise them.
Science Learning As Conceptual Restructuring The research on students’ understandings of science largely falls around two general lines: Piagetian notions of the learner interacting with physical phenomena and Vygotskian notions of learners constructing understandings based on making sense of group interactions. Until recently, research on science learning has largely focused on how individual learners accommodate novel scientific explanations of natural phenomena. For example, the conceptual change model (CCM; Posner, Strike, Hewson, & Gertzog, 1982; Strike & Posner, 1992) describes the process of an individual’s learning in terms of patterns of paradigmatic changes in science (T. Kuhn, 1970). According to the original CCM, learners are understood to logically evaluate the utility of their conceptions to account for data or evidence. If a learner is unable to account for anomalous data, then a second, competing conception is sought. The learner then evaluates the competing conceptions, experiencing change only if the new conception is found to be superior in accounting for all current and future data. The CCM has been critiqued for its inability to adequately account for the diverse pathways students use to construct a scientific understanding (Pintrich, Marx, & Boyle, 1993; Strike & Posner, 1992) because it ignores learning processes that are not in alignment with Western, linear, logical patterns of thought. This critique was echoed in the work of a host of researchers who worked to push past the rational, logical, strictly cognitive confines of this model (Alsop, 2005; Demastes-Southerland, Good, & Peebles, 1995). These authors explain that goals, emotions, dispositions, and motivations interact with cognitive constructs to play a significant role in shaping learning.
The Role of The Group in Conceptual Restructuring A goal of the social constructivist framework is to understand the discursive practices students use when engaged in science. This requires understanding "how knowledge is constructed and how discourse processes, social actions, and cultural practices shape what counts as knowing and doing within a particular group" (Kelly & Green, 1998, p. 146). Toward these ends, numerous studies closely analyze the events transpiring within science discussions (Bianchini, 1997; Shepardson & Britsch, 2006) and focus on how students’ social interactions shape the knowledge the class constructs. Other studies have investigated how this class construction becomes assimilated by the individual (Moje & Shepardson, 1998; Southerland, Kittleson, Settlage, & Lanier, 2005).
Learning As Developing Science Practice What would second-order changes in the area of student learning include? Beginning lessons by assessing students’ prior knowledge and using that knowledge to frame the lesson would be a useful beginning (Atkin, Black, & Coffey, 2001). Recognizing the need for sustained, focused, individual, and group sense-making opportunities, as advocated by science education researchers, also would suggest a very different flow of lessons instead of those that emphasize rote memorization of a broad scope of material. Ensuring that assessments include multiple modalities for students to demonstrate their knowledge and skills (Duschl & Gitomer, 1997) as well as opportunities for students to apply their new knowledge to real-world situations also would be a form of second-order change.
Inquiry has long been a term employed to describe quality teaching and learning in science (NRC, 1996, 2000; Schwab, 1962), and inquiry is one of the cornerstones of the current round of science education reform. This trend is not surprising given that scientists played a prominent role in its articulation (Rudolph, 2002). Clearly, the authors of science education reform documents draw parallels between how science is conducted and how students learn science (NRC, 2000): Scientific inquiry refers to the diverse ways in which scientists study the natural world and propose explanations based on the evidence derived from their work. Inquiry also refers to the activities of students in which they develop knowledge and understanding of scientific ideas, as well as an understanding of how scientists study the natural world. (p. 23) Meaningful learning in science is facilitated when students employ some of the same strategies scientists use: observing, questioning, examining research to determine what is known, planning and conducting investigations, constructing explanations based on those investigations, and communicating what they have learned.
Defining Inquiry Perhaps the most familiar notion of inquiry is that of inquiry as an investigative process. In this usage, "inquiry refers to the diverse ways in which scientists study the natural world and propose explanations based on the evidence derived from their work" (NRC, 1996, p. 23). It is this use that harkens back to the scientific method that many people experienced as learners. However, the portrait of inquiry as conveyed in the reforms is fundamentally different than this lock-step method. Instead, when students come to learn about science as a process of inquiry, they learn how scientists go about constructing explanations of natural phenomena and come to recognize that these methods are appropriate for questions posed in their own lives (Flick, 2003). Learning about inquiry is distinct from using inquiry to teach science content. Indeed, the most prolific use of inquiry in science education surrounds its use as a teaching approach, largely because it is described as the "central strategy" to be employed when teaching science (NRC, 1996, p. 31). In this vein, inquiry has been used to describe a wide variety of curriculum projects and programs (Moss, Abrams, & Robb-Kull, 1998; Rivet & Krajcik, 2004), teaching techniques (McCarthy, 2005), and overall approaches to teaching science (Druva & Anderson, 1983; Lott, 1983). To further assist in recognizing inquiry-based teaching, the reforms attempt to describe its central features (NRC, 1996, 2000). Using these features, a classroom event is considered to be some form of inquiry if it allows learners to (a) engage with scientifically oriented questions; (b) place priority on evidence, allowing them to develop and evaluate explanations that address scientifically oriented questions; (c) draw inferences from evidence to formulate explanations that address scientifically oriented questions; (d) evaluate their explanations in light of possible alternatives; and (e) communicate and justify their explanations. Another approach to understanding classroom-based inquiry focuses more on the nature of the task and less on what the students are engaged in doing. Chinn and Malhotra (2002) distinguish between the nature of simple and authentic inquiry experiences. Simple experiments involve investigating the effect of a single independent variable on a single dependent variable accompanied by careful observations and descriptions guided by a specified procedure. In contrast, authentic experiences are ones in which questions are not necessarily determined, there is often more than one variable, procedures must be designed, and there is usually a need for multiple studies. Chinn and Malhotra argue that complex, authentic inquiry experiences should become a priority in science classrooms.
The Benefits of Classroom-Based Inquiry
Epistemological understandings
Greater content learning and improved attitudes toward science Despite the articulated benefits of inquiry teaching, altering the way science has traditionally been taught in classrooms by implementing classroom-based inquiry requires teachers to drastically reenvision science teaching and learning and to make second-order changes in their practice. Clearly, this has affected efforts to induce teachers to enact classroom-based inquiry as described by science education reformers, and the results of these efforts have been mixed. Although some teachers have readily accepted inquiry as a way of teaching (Crawford, 2000; L. K. Smith, 2005), others have been more reluctant to teach science as inquiry (Davis, 2002; Laplante, 1997, L. K. Smith, 2005), and still other classroom teachers remain uncertain as to how to enact these second-order changes in the way they teach science (L. K. Smith, 2005). Moreover, because of the wide variety of interpretations of what classroom inquiry might look like, we should not be surprised that multiple studies have documented both preservice and inservice teachers’ struggle to understand and to implement inquiry teaching (Crawford, Zembal-Saul, Munford, & Friedrichsen, 2005; Lee, Hart, Cuevas, & Enders, 2004; Windschitl, 2004), a challenge that will be discussed further in a section that follows. Indeed, it must be recognized that some in our community see inquiry as such a nebulous construct that it has become a hindrance to our reform efforts (Settlage, 2003), suggesting that our definitions of inquiry must be reconceived in terms of student learning outcomes so as to eliminate much of the confusion surrounding this construct.
One of the most consistent messages in reform is that deep conceptual knowledge of science includes understanding the nature of science (NOS), that is, knowledge about science in contrast to scientific knowledge (Duschl, 1990). NOS instruction includes the cultural practices of science, its presuppositions, methodological assumptions, goals, and boundaries, as well as the conventions underlying knowledge produced through science (Poole, 1996; M. U. Smith & Scharmann, 1999). An understanding of NOS serves scientific literacy because if one is expected to make informed personal and societal decisions, one must understand how science works. The following are put forth as central tenets necessary to understand scientific knowledge: Scientific knowledge is tentative; empirical; theory-laden; partly the product of human inference, imagination, and creativity; and socially and culturally embedded, and knowing about science involves understanding the distinction between observation and inference, the lack of a universal recipe like method for doing science, and the functions of and relationships between scientific theories and laws. (Lederman, Abd-El-Khalick, Bell, & Schwartz, 2002, p. 499) These tenets are not meant to codify conceptions of scientific knowledge or settle debates about the nature of knowledge. Rather, these tenets are meant to describe aspects of NOS that are important to know to be a literate citizen, particularly for formal K–12 schooling. Other researchers working in this realm focus on scientific epistemologies; they focus on how science is done and the nature of the knowledge it produces, but without a tight focus on the individual acquisition of a small group of concepts. Researchers who focus on scientific epistemologies often closely examine practice as a means to understand that epistemology (e.g., Hammer & Elby, 2003; Kelly, 2004; Kittleson, 2006; Sandoval, 2005). Both NOS and scientific epistemological efforts focus our attention on the importance of knowledge about science as opposed to the historically narrow focus on scientific knowledge. Because NOS figures prominently into curricular reform, there has been a wealth of research into teaching and learning NOS, including a substantial amount of research on preservice and inservice teachers’ conceptions of NOS (e.g., Abd-El-Khalick & Lederman, 2000; Southerland, Johnston, & Sowell, 2006). It is well established that NOS conceptions are difficult for students to fully understand and that most teachers do not hold a sophisticated understanding of the nature of science (e.g., Abd-El-Khalick, 2001; Johnston, 2001; Lederman, 1992; Southerland, Gess-Newsome, & Johnston, 2003). Researchers argue that preservice and inservice teachers should explicitly and reflectively engage with NOS, and many researchers have designed activities (Cobern & Loving, 1998; Lederman & Abd-El-Khalick, 1998; M. U. Smith & Scharmann, 1999) as well as entire courses that target NOS conceptions (Loving & Foster, 2000; Southerland et al., 2006).
Research Instruments and NOS
A resounding message of reform-oriented education is the following: "Science in our schools must be for all students: All students, regardless of age, sex, cultural or ethnic background, disabilities, aspirations, or interest and motivation in science, should have the opportunity to attain high levels of scientific literacy" (NRC, 1996, p. 20). Simply put, if our goal is that every student attains a useful level of scientific literacy, then we must come to better understand how to teach all students, particularly those who come from marginalized, traditionally underserved groups who tend to underperform on standardized measures of science learning (Kober, 2001; Norman, Ault, Bentz, & Meskimen, 2001). Traditional classroom practices, however, often share a genealogy with mainstream, middle-class, White populations. Science educators who focus on diversity examine what this means for teaching and learning science, especially for students of color, students whose first language is not English, and students who live in poverty. Given the existing achievement gaps for non-mainstream students, the research community continues to explore the best ways to engender scientific literacy for culturally, linguistically, and socioeconomically diverse student groups. Although reform calls for science for all, scholars posit that reform documents themselves are largely blind to student and teacher difference. Science education researchers have taken up the task of exploring how the standards could actually be implemented within a multicultural theoretical framework. According to Rodriguez (1998), "the basic premise of multiculturalism is that all learners at any grade level must be provided with equitable opportunities for success" (p. 591). The distinction between equal and equitable science education is a fundamental one. Reform is not pushing us toward a "one size fits all" (Lynch, 2001) approach to the teaching and learning of science. Rather, it encourages equitable science teaching and learning. "Equitable instruction and assessment practices for diverse students involve consideration of their cultural and linguistic experiences in preparing them to function competently in the institutions of power as well as in their homes and communities" (Lee, 2001, pp. 499–500). This suggests that there is a need for teachers to be aware of who they are teaching, knowing the critical intersections between Western science, school science, and the cultural backgrounds of the students themselves. Envisioning the attainment of the goal of science for all has pushed science education research toward exploring inclusive, multicultural science teaching and learning. Science education researchers have provided strong evidence of the importance of recognizing and bringing into play the linguistic and cultural resources students carry with them into the classroom (Lee, 2001, 2003; Warren, Ballenger, Ogonowski, Rosebery, & Hudicourt-Barnes, 2001). Much of science education research efforts have moved from an "add marginalized group and stir" model (such as ensuring more girls have access to upper-level science courses, an example of Cuban’s first-order change) toward one that looks at the very nature of how school science instruction intersects with issues of student diversity (such as examining the curriculum to address areas of gender bias in a course, an example of Cuban’s second-order change). This latter model focuses on more nuanced issues of student and teacher identities (Barton, 1998; Brickhouse, Lowery, & Schultz, 2000; Carlone, 2003, 2005; Letts, 1999; Sowell, 2004), culturally relevant curricula (Parsons, Travis, & Simpson, 2005), instructional congruence (Lee & Fradd, 1998), and the role that everyday discourse plays in scientific meaning making (Southerland, Johnston, et al., 2005; Varelas, Pappas, & Rife, 2004; Warren et al., 2001). The history of gender research illuminates our current approach to multicultural science education. Baker (2002), in a review of articles appearing in a leading journal in the field since the 1970s, described the history of gender equity in science education in this way: These studies were either psychological in orientation and used White male performance as the benchmark, or lacked explicit theoretical frameworks. . . . They were conducted under what I call the "My Fair Lady" framework, or "Why can’t a woman be more like a man?" When there were differences or correlates, the White male model was the right model. (p. 660) By the 1980s, a less mechanistic concern for diverse populations, including women, had emerged, with a stronger advocacy for getting more female students involved in science rather than simply explaining differences based on sex. However, "the psychological perspective still held sway, and no one was yet questioning whether the so-called problem of girls and science had less to do with the nature of girls and more to do with the nature of science" (Baker, 2002, p. 660). In the early 1990s, research began to challenge the nature of school science, and "fixing school science" took precedence over "fixing the girl science student." Baker notes that attention toward a multiplicity of difference (gender, race, class, ethnicity, etc.) that arose in the latter 1990s allowed connections between gender and other forms of social inequity. We argue that efforts toward understanding other markers of student difference (e.g., race, culture, or ability) have mirrored to some degree this pattern that Baker illustrates for gender. Clearly, careful consideration of knowledge about science (NOS) is highly important as we look at student diversity and inclusion (Barton, 1998; Lee, 1997; Southerland & Gess-Newsome, 1999; Sowell, Southerland, & Blanchard, 2006). Understanding NOS can be an important political tool to achieve more equitable science teaching (Southerland, 2000). If one goal of reform-minded NOS instruction is to provide students with an understanding of the boundaries of scientific knowledge and how science intersects and compares with other ways of knowing, then there are very pragmatic connections between reform messages and those within aspects of multicultural science education. We recognize the connections and contradictions between the students’ everyday discourse and the cultural norms of science itself. Southerland, Johnston, et al. (2005) comment that researchers must "pay particular attention to potential incongruities between the cultural norms of science and those of the students from diverse settings" (p. 1035). This message has become central to the way in which we approach equity research. The border-crossing literature (Aikenhead, 1996; Hodson, 1999) promotes facilitating students’ moving between the cultures of science and of home and purposefully making those boundaries and crossings very transparent. Teachers must become proficient tour guides for their students’ border-crossings, in effect becoming bilingual/bicultural individuals. As Lee (2003) points out, the teacher needs knowledge of both sides of that border: "science disciplines and students’ languages and cultures" (p. 481). This approach facilitates a higher degree of instructional congruence, that is, the integration of students’ everyday culture and language with the cultural and linguistic practices of science. Diversity informs reform efforts by examining how certain groups of students interact with school science. Categories of difference, although perhaps falsely perceived as homogeneous, allow us to recognize when less equitable practices need to be addressed. Equity research in science education utilizes identity politics as a way of calling us out on inequitable classroom practices. Research in multicultural science education uses the productive tension between recognizing the achievement gaps for certain underserved student populations while at the same time working to better understand nuances and differences within those particular groups. How would teachers enact second-order changes with regard to issues of diversity and equity? Thinking first and foremost about student identities, as well as the linguistic and cultural resources these students bring with them into the classroom, is key to keeping issues of diversity at the forefront of instructional planning. Planning for instruction that emerges from the lived experiences of the students is one way to engender a more harmonious relationship between classroom teaching and students’ everyday lives. Thus, second-order changes place greater onus of change on science teaching and curricula (i.e., the culture of classroom science) than on the students themselves.
The overarching goal of science teacher education since the mid-1980s has been to radically change the way science is taught in classrooms. It has clearly been an era of reform intended to enact second-order change in both science curriculum and instruction at all grade levels. Having previously articulated the goals of reform in other sections of this discussion, we focus here on the challenges faced by science teacher educators in educating and supporting prospective and practicing teachers to actively engage students at all levels in learning foundational science concepts, the nature of science, and the processes of scientific inquiry. There are many individuals within the science education research community who are "committed to the new vision for teaching and learning science" (Meadows, 2005, p. 1) offered via the reforms. Literally thousands of methods courses, research initiatives, curriculum development projects, professional development seminars, and other national and local efforts have been devoted to promoting the national standards and supporting teachers’ enactment of them in the classroom (e.g., Luera & Otto, 2005). For much of the 1980s and 1990s, successful implementation of the reforms was most often attributed to prospective and practicing teachers’ abilities to reconsider the way they think about science and science instruction (Gess-Newsome, Southerland, Johnston, & Woodbury, 2003). Recently, the conversation has broadened to focus on teachers’ knowledge and beliefs as situated in contexts that shape the enactment of reforms. Despite the work of reform-minded science teacher educators, scientists, and policy makers, these efforts are far from uniform. L. K. Smith and Gess-Newsome (2004) suggest that efforts to attend to these standards by instructors of elementary science methods courses are not consistent across programs. Of the 56 methods courses (representing all geographic areas of the United States) described in their study, approximately 27% failed to emphasize inquiry-based science instruction enough to include mention of it in the course objectives, assignments, or assigned topics and readings. Likewise, some practicing science teachers at both the elementary and secondary levels embrace reform-oriented instruction in their classrooms, whereas others are either unable or unwilling to modify their curriculum or instruction to align more closely with current science initiatives (Crawford, 2000; Davis, 2002; L. K. Smith, 2005; L. K. Smith & Southerland, 2007).
Internally Imposed Barriers to Science Education Reform There is some evidence that certain teachers may be more willing to embrace innovations than others due to intrinsic psychological attributes (Hopkins, 1990). The argument is that the cognitive development, psychological state, or "personalities" (McKibbin & Joyce, 1981, p. 254) of teachers, in combination with the general milieu of the school and the social movements of the times, allow some teachers to see possibilities for thinking about and implementing new ways of teaching. In contrast, other teachers fear and avoid the risks associated with change. In essence, this research contends that more abstract and cognitively complex teacher thinking allows for greater use of new educational ideas (Hopkins, 1990). Other research (C. W. Anderson, 2003) suggests that one reason for the continued struggle to convince teachers to enact reform is "a fundamental incompatibility" between how teachers view science and the way science is portrayed in the reforms (p. 9). C. W. Anderson argues that, for teachers, "science provides an authoritative picture of how the world is" (p. 9). The epistemological stances that accompany these views (such as knowledge as final form, directly reflected by data, isolated from context) make adoption of the tenets of reform very difficult, a finding supported by a host of other researchers (Abell & Smith, 1994; Sandoval, 2003; Windschitl, 2003, 2004). Teachers’ beliefs about their ability to positively influence student learning through particular instructional interventions—beliefs that have come to be known as teacher self-efficacy (Tschannen-Moran, Hoy, & Hoy, 1998)—also influence their willingness to implement science education reform. Low teacher self-efficacy is characterized by teacher-centered science instruction; high teacher self-efficacy is more likely to result in the use of inquiry and more student-centered pedagogical practices (Ramey-Gassert, Shroyer, & Staver, 1996). Both prospective and practicing teachers hold beliefs about science and what constitutes good science education. These beliefs are developed throughout years of experience as students in classrooms (Lortie, 1975) and in out-of-school contexts (L. K. Smith, 2005), and they are mediated by teachers’ conceptions of self: as learners and knowers of science (Laplante, 1997; L. K. Smith, 2005) and as science teachers (Weld & Funk, 2005). These beliefs also are deeply held (Pajares, 1992) and guide teachers’ selection of content and teaching methods (Abell & Smith, 1994; Brickhouse & Bodner, 1992; Gess-Newsome, 1999). Some teachers hold beliefs about appropriate instruction that can serve as barriers to reform; other educators hold beliefs that align closely with the tenets of reform and openly embrace inquiry-based instruction in their classrooms (L. K. Smith, 2005; L. K. Smith & Southerland, 2007). Based on this evidence, teacher preparation and teacher development programs have targeted teachers’ science-related beliefs in efforts to change teaching practices. Some of these efforts suggest that science methods courses may influence preservice teachers’ beliefs about what it means to teach and learn science (Abell & Bryan, 1997; Eick & Dias, 2005). However, studies that have examined the impact of professional development opportunities for practicing teachers describe wide differences in teachers’ abilities to incorporate innovative teaching practices (Davis, 2002; Luft, 2001). In addition to new instructional practices, science education reforms also ask teachers to implement innovative, reform-based assessment practices that make different and challenging demands of teachers’ knowledge and skills. Similar to other pedagogical innovations, these changes may conflict with teachers’ fundamental beliefs about science assessment (Matese, Griesdorn, & Edelson, 2002; L. K. Smith & Southerland, 2007), constraining teachers’ response to calls for change. Teachers’ subject-matter knowledge may be another significant barrier to implementing classroom-based inquiry and other reform-based practices (Laplante, 1997; Wallace & Kang, 2004). Many teachers (both elementary and secondary) lack a conceptually rich or accurate understanding of the content they teach (Gess-Newsome, 1999). As a result, these teachers are likely to rely heavily on the textbook and worksheets and to cover the content in a sequential and isolated fashion (Carlsen, 1991). In contrast, because they have a more fluid and multifaceted understanding of their content, teachers with strong conceptual knowledge are more prone to adopt inquiry as a facet of their teaching. Finally, aside from the influence of teachers’ content knowledge and beliefs, enacting classroom-based inquiry requires a significant shift in teaching practices (Crawford, 2000; Windschitl, 2004). Although teachers come to the classroom with a wealth of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), much of it is largely traditional (Davis, 2002). Because classroom-based inquiry requires a different kind of PCK, and this knowledge requires significant time to develop, it is frequently not seen in science classrooms.
Externally Imposed Barriers to Science Education Reform Science teacher educators continue to face multiple challenges as they encourage teachers to think differently about science and science instruction. The form of science teaching described here exemplifies what Cuban refers to as second-order change because it asks teachers to turn from traditional recitation methods of "teaching as telling" and rote memorization of science content. Instead, teachers are asked to provide learning experiences that actively engage students in learning the substantive content of science through classroom-based inquiry, enabling them to understand the facts, principles, and theories of the discipline as well as the ability to comprehend, interpret, analyze, reason, and communicate about discipline-specific ideas. In short, classroom teachers are asked to develop scientifically literate individuals, an effort that will continue to require the sustained support of science teacher educators. However, as will be discussed, current accountability movements that spur states’ and districts’ adoptions of first-order changes play a powerful role in preventing the enactment of science educations’ efforts at second-order reforms.
Science teaching has recently taken a "back seat" to reading and math because "what gets taught in a classroom is largely determined by what gets tested" (Lee & Luykx, 2006, p. 28). Some elementary teachers, for example, report that their administrator is so eager to provide evidence of AYP in math and literacy that science has been completely removed from their curriculum, and some high school science teachers are required to explicitly drill math and reading skills in science class (Saka, 2007). Beginning in the 2007–2008 school year, however, schools must administer annual tests in science achievement at least once in Grades 3 to 5, 6 to 9, and 10 to 12. Some people hope that these assessments will prompt schools and school districts to align content standards with teaching practices (Hovey, Hazelwood, & Svedkauskaire, 2005). Others inside and outside the science education community have responded with a mixture of anticipation and dread. An article published in Education Week, for example, suggests that NCLB could "alter science teaching" by forcing schools to "cut back on some of the in-class experiments many teachers value" in favor of a more straightforward approach (Cavanagh, 2004, p. 1). Although this "straightforward approach" fits with common traditions of schooling and meshes well with many teachers’ approaches to science instruction, it contradicts much of what we have learned through the past 20 years or more of research. We understand NCLB to be an attempt to elicit first-order changes because it does not articulate clear goals for learners or explicitly describe any particular form of instruction or assessment. Given the lack of a clear vision for pedagogy and the limited nature of funding for the development of state standards and assessments, NCLB is not capable of instigating second-order changes. The structures within NCLB policy encourage schools to do more of what they have traditionally been doing: more rigor (in terms of scope of content, not depth of thought) as a route to greater student achievement. Quick fixes (first-order change) become far more imperative than exploring what is called for within science education research-based reform (second-order change). We are reluctant to embrace NCLB because of its first-order nature, and this first-order nature plays out in two prominent ways: teachers’ perceptions of assessments and the problematic nature of the accountability measures themselves. Many teachers view the national standards documents, the state science curricula, and the associated end-of-level tests to be conflicting (L. K. Smith & Southerland, 2007). Indeed, some teachers argue that the National Science Education Standards (NRC, 1996) describe an image of science that is incompatible with state-mandated curriculum and accountability measures that they perceive to be focused primarily or exclusively on content coverage. Accountability measures that focus on content are problematic because it is unclear how well these measures assess students’ "walking around knowledge" of science (Brickhouse, 2006). Some of these assessments might measure practices such as the application of knowledge or the interpretation of data; however, it is important to recognize that each state has its own standardized assessment tool. Thus, there is likely a wide range of assessments employed around the nation. Despite the NCLB legislation, funding for developing assessments is limited. Because of this, assessments are not continually revised in many states, preventing teachers from fully engaging with the yearly assessments. This lack of full engagement means that often teachers are not able to construct a robust understanding of the kinds of student learning to be assessed. In some states, teachers have been fined if they are caught examining the assessments firsthand (Aydeniz, 2007). Although such efforts may be attempts to prevent "teaching to the test," this isolation leaves teachers to teach to their understandings and/or worst fears about what the test might contain and targeting lower-level knowledge in their classrooms (L. K. Smith & Southerland, 2007). In addition, limited funding for professional development associated with assessments may drive teachers to cover a great deal of content in very little time, thus negating many of the instructional approaches supported in reform efforts. Given these interactions, there is a mismatch between reform efforts focusing on scientific literacy and the policy goals of NCLB. With no clear direction from NCLB in terms of how teaching and learning should be approached in any reform-specific way—combined with the high-stakes nature of the assessment outcomes for administrators and teachers—districts, schools, and teachers may feel pressured to rely on traditional methods of teaching science. Collins (1998) describes that there are three tools of reform: content standards (descriptions of what should be learned), pedagogical standards (descriptions of how that content should be taught [NRC, 2000]), and assessment standards (descriptions of how student learning and the effectiveness of instruction is to be measured [Atkin et al., 2001]). However, the content standards are the only tool that features prominently in states’ interpretation of NCLB. Thus, research areas that are adequately represented in the content standards, such as the nature of science, have enjoyed some degree of success in terms of their inclusion in many state standards. In addition, diversity has been influenced by NCLB because states are required to examine achievement levels of various groups of students. Research in teacher education also is becoming vigorous, at least in terms of understanding how science teaching is shaped by local, district, and state climates. Other aspects of science education research, such as learning theory, however, are poorly represented in the states’ interpretations of content standards and thus have had limited responses to NCLB. In the following sections, we describe the uneven nature of the response of the various research communities.
Response of Learning Research to NCLB Implementing current learning theory focuses on understanding broad conceptual ideas and enculturation into the practices and discourses of science. From this perspective, learning is understood to be a long, complex process requiring an engaged learner. This conception of learning is at odds with the wide scope of the content curricula found in many states, their associated assessments, and the common pedagogical response to these extensive curricula (i.e., drilling months before the examination, wide content coverage to ensure student recognition of maximum amount of material, approaching science as a vocabulary exercise). There has been very little overt reaction by the science education community in response to NCLB because the two sides operate on almost incommensurate views of learning.
Response of Research Into Inquiry to NCLB
Response of Nature of Science Research to NCLB
Response of Diversity Research to NCLB Shaver, Cuevas, Lee, and Avalos (in press) describe elementary teachers’ reactions to the current policy climate and its relation to the teaching/learning of science. In particular, they focus on the effects of policy on students who are English language learners (ELL) and students of low socioeconomic status (SES). In general, the teachers had positive perspectives on state and district science standards, seeing them as supportive guidelines for science instruction. However, they were less positive as they described how state assessment practices resulted in increased test preparation for those subject areas being tested, including reading, writing, and mathematics, and reduced instructional time for those subject areas not being tested, including science. Added to this were frustrations regarding the expectations for ELL students to take and pass the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) without accommodations. The researchers point to the accountability climate as a factor that reduces teacher agency regarding the success of their students, in particular those students who have been traditionally underserved by the existing system. NCLB can be seen as pushing us to be more difference blind in that the policy promotes seemingly academically rigorous traditional teaching, teaching that has strongest commonalities with the language and cultural practices of mainstream students. NCLB prevents states from ignoring this problem because it clearly requires states to focus on achievement gaps. However, the emphasis on broad content knowledge that is seen in most states’ science content standards renders states’ responses to NCLB largely devoid of emphasis on the cultural aspects of science content. This is in direct contradiction to research on equitable science education that highlights the importance of recognizing and honoring cultural aspects of science teaching and learning. Although NCLB requires states to address achievement gaps, the manner in which it has been implemented largely prevents states from substantively addressing the underlying reasons for these gaps. In terms of teacher quality, we also see a mismatch between what is known via research into diversity and the structures imposed by NCLB. Whereas science education places value on a wide range of teacher knowledge (science content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, students’ prior knowledge and experiences, pedagogical content knowledge), which is recognized to include teacher knowledge of student diversity, NCLB places higher priority on how much science content a teacher knows. "The [Highly Qualified Teacher] definition focuses almost exclusively on subject matter and ignores pedagogy and other professional knowledge and skills" (Cochran-Smith, 2005, p. 101). A synthesis of the most recent research in science education has shown that equitable science teaching practices require much more than simple content knowledge. Work at the Ch’eche Konnen Center for Science Teaching and Learning, for instance, introduced the idea "repertoires of practice" into the field of science education. Rosebery (2004) describes repertoires of practice as "what people do and what they say about what they do. It is the practices they engage in, what they do as a result of their involvement in particular communities" (p. 2). In terms of science teaching, important repertoires of practice include the cultures of science, the classroom, the school, and the broader culture of the teaching profession. Content knowledge, then, is just one of many necessary sources of teacher knowledge. To sum, although NCLB does focus attention on achievement gaps of particular demographics groups, the limited funding does not provide schools with the resources necessary to meet the accountability standards it imposes, promising greater consequences for nonmainstream students than their mainstream counterparts (Lee & Luykx, 2006).
Response of Teacher Education Research to NCLB In addition to these analyses of the teacher population, there is a growing body of teacher education research that focuses on the way in which teachers respond to their state’s implementation of NCLB legislation (Aydeniz, 2007; Luft et al., 2007; Saka, 2007; Shaver et al., in press; L. K. Smith & Southerland, 2007). Indeed, standardized testing within high-stakes testing programs currently serve as "a dominant force in the current streams of thought and politic" shaping K-12 education (Huber & Moore, 2002, p. 18). For example, heightened accountability through mandated high-stakes testing has discouraged teachers from implementing reform-based science instruction in their classrooms (Yerrick, Parke, & Nugent, 1997) and have led to a number of other negative consequences, including what Settlage and Meadows (2002) describe as the "trivialization of science instruction" (p. 116), where the emphasis is placed primarily on "the acquisition of isolated facts rather than broad conceptual understanding" (L. K. Smith & Southerland, 2007). In short, teachers are hard pressed to enact the second-order changes of science education reform because of the intensified need to show demonstrable student gains on state-produced examinations.
We could conceivably raise test scores in science without substantively influencing who engages in science either professionally or as a citizen or enhancing the quality of that engagement. Tests are only a proxy for those competencies that we really value. Some tests are certainly better proxies than others. But none of them are the actual competencies that are the aim of scientific literacy. While there may be a time when it is justifiable to use test scores as a proxy for the competencies we value, we need to be very critical of our measures and cognizant of the need to keep real educational assessment as close to the actual competencies as we can. (Brickhouse, 2006, p. 3)
Conflicting Views Between NCLB and the Science Education Community In terms of what counts as the gold standard of research methodology under NCLB, the methodological push asks us to use largely traditional, quantitative, experimental, or quasi-experimental research methods that yield prescriptions for action. This narrow perspective of what counts as good research shapes the questions one may legitimately pursue and would represent a radical shift in the current practice of science education research. The studies we have cited in our synthesis of research employ a broad spectrum of methods, from ethnographies to hierarchical linear modeling. Indeed, scholars in our field are currently engaged in diverse types of inquiries requiring very different methodologies, all in an effort to inform our understanding of science teaching and learning and to improve science education for all students. However, NCLB would limit such efforts, supporting the use of only a fraction of those methods, thereby limiting the kinds of questions deemed legitimate and ultimately ignoring the more important questions of how research and education "contribute to the well-being of students, teachers, and communities" (Hostetler, 2005, p. 16). Hence, this push is asking us to move backward in time 20 years or more in terms of what is considered appropriate, limiting our focus only to test scores as opposed to how science teaching affects all students’ access to scientific knowledge, their participation in a democracy, and ultimately their quality of life. In terms of what counts as a highly qualified science teacher, again NCLB pushes us to focus on merely a subsection of the rigorous knowledge, skill, and disposition bases our field recognizes as important to the craft of science teaching. Where NCLB emphasizes content knowledge above all else, we also recognize the need for pedagogical content knowledge, broader pedagogical knowledge, knowledge of student learning patterns within the field of study, high expectations for all learners, recognition of the need for equity in the teaching of science, and multiple repertoires of practice. Again, the emphasis of NCLB in terms of what is needed for teacher quality asks us to ignore much of what the research of the past 20 years has revealed as fundamentally essential for science teaching. We understand the particular atmosphere of science education in the United States to be the result of the interaction of a number of factors related to NCLB: the high stakes nature of accountability, the limited funds available for the construction of assessments that can measure the competencies we value, and the manner in which the national science content standards have been adopted while the pedagogical and assessment standards have failed to be accommodated by the same systems. This atmosphere makes it very unlikely that the second-order reforms we have worked toward can come to fruition because real science literacy seems to have taken a back seat to performance to weak proxies.
Acknowledging Our Responsibilities as Science Educators Because NCLB does not include science until 2007, the research on this area is very limited. We hope that more research, such as the work of Marx et al. (2004) and Shaver et al. (in press), that focuses on the success of reform in the climate of accountability will emerge as NCLB becomes part of policy and practice in science education. There is a growing body of research suggesting that our push toward second-order change is not intelligible given the states’ overwhelming emphases on first-order remedies. Thus, many of us have isolated our work and our professional development efforts to those pockets in which a productive discussion is eased, ignoring that which is out of our control. As Julie Kittleson (2005) recently asked at a meeting dedicated to reflecting on the state of science education research, "To whom are science education researchers responsible? Are we responsible only to ourselves?" (p. 2). Our answer is that researchers’ blind eye approach to the state of science schooling is fundamentally irresponsible. Although we are not willing to reject what we know from the science education reform movement and the large body of research that has been accomplished in response to it, we argue that science educators are responsible for making real efforts to change what happens in schools. As Settlage (2006) describes, taking a "scholarly stance" is important but insufficient. We must "proceed with a sense of purpose" in "intellectually informed activity" (p. 4). To do this, to own up to our responsibilities, scholars must develop new sensibilities and skills that will facilitate the enactment of the vision of science literacy for all. Perhaps most important, we must learn to better communicate between and across different populations; we must assume the role of "border crossers" or "border crossing" (see Sandholtz & Finan, 1998), and not only across the researcher-teacher border (a boundary spanning that many of us have come to see as a critical part of our work). We also must be willing to move across a number of professional borders (i.e., researcher-administrator, researcher-parent, researcher-policy maker, researcher-test producer). We use the term "border-crossing" very deliberately here as we see moving between professional communities as kin to moving across cultures, suggesting that we can no longer afford to think in terms of us and them but instead need to work to be active in many spheres if these communities are to inform one another in any real way. To facilitate this border crossing, science educators also must accept work within our local, state, and national context as an essential aspect of our work to better articulate and propagate a realizable vision of meaningful science teaching and learning, that is, we understand assessment and accountability to be fundamental aspects of learning. Indeed, we echo Collins’s (1998) contention that reform is about appropriate standards, related pedagogical practices that are based in and respond to our understanding of student learning, while recognizing that assessment is a visceral aspect of such change. Instead of ignoring standardized assessments or railing against what we perceive to be their misuses, we must offer up meaningful alternative assessments to what we understand to be weak proxies. These alternatives can then serve as models of how to adequately measure students’ knowledge and skills in ways that are in alignment with the second-order reforms we seek. In tandem, if second-order reforms in science education are to be supported, then we advocate that science educators must weigh in on the adequacy of textbooks and other curricula in terms of how well or how poorly they support reform-based instruction. Again, this should be with an eye to suggesting models of what textbooks that adequately support reform-based instruction may look like. Science education researchers also must become more active in the development of sound educational policy, on all levels, by engaging in activities such as working to lobby the legislature, participating in school board meetings, and writing editorials for newspapers. But, as Windschitl (2006) points out, in these roles we must move past our familiar scripts (such as that played out in the opening vignette) and work to forge productive discussions—shared meanings—grounded in classroom scenarios. It is not enough to develop a body of knowledge about teaching and learning. Instead, we must work to make this knowledge intelligible, useful, and available for others, in particular when these others are in powerful positions to enact legislative or school change. We recognize that much of what we’re advocating is for science educators and scholars to reconceptualize our work. In addition to our efforts in research, teacher education, and the education of children and youth, we argue for an additional component to our work. Much of this work, this professional border crossing, will not profit our careers in any proximal way. Indeed, working across communities often represents a significant investment of time and energy, time and energy no longer available to our more familiar (and professionally recognized) scholarly activity. However, Kittleson’s (2005) query resonates, "To whom are science educators responsible?" We contend that we are responsible not only to the community of scholars in terms of furthering our understandings of the processes involved in the teaching and learning of science but we are also responsible to our wider society in terms of working to allow this knowledge to inform and shape the patterns of science teaching and learning.
Our thanks to Okhee Lee, Steve Oliver, and the anonymous reviewers for their insights into earlier versions of this chapter.
Review of Research in Education, Vol. 31, No. 1,
45-77 (2007)
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